As you may recall, WNYMBA announced last year that in partnership with Allegany State Park, a Recreational Trails Program (RTP) grant was made to construct the new Stone Tower Trail at Allegany. The grant is for about $95,000, but the terms of the grant is that we have to match 20% in funds and/or volunteer labor. We are on the hook for between $18K and $19K. That is where the IMBA Digin Campaign came into play last year. Perhaps you recall this, but here is the link annoucing it: http://www.wnymba.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=842:dig-in-campaign-and-the-stone-tower-trail-at-asp&catid=70&Itemid=451 Thanks to you all, we raised thousands of dollars that will go towards the match. We have also been raising money through raffles and other events, but will have to make a major push again in the next year to raise more for our match.

We also plan to use volunteer labor towards the match. Unfortunately, the considerable number of hours we have already spent on this trail won't count because they were prior to award. We have workers standing by, including Greg Snow with his excavator (yeah Greg!) ready to go, but we have to hold off until it the period opens up for this to count towards the match.

But in summary, this grant, and this trail (the portion in the very center of the image above - the existing ASP trails, including the new thunder run is on the left, and a future Stone Tower expansion all the way to just above the Salamanca Casino - phase 2 - is in the lower right) is a definite go. WNYMBA wants everyone who contributed to know that this funding you contributed is still there and will be put towards this new trail. We have been in constant consultation with the Park, and they are putting the finishing touches on the extensive paperwork needed for this grant. Once that paperwork is in place, the Park will hire someone similar to the firm (Dirt Artisans) who built Jakes Rocks to come in and build most of the trail, with WNYMBA building the rest as part of the match. The Park indicated that they expect the time when volunteer match will be eligible should be in a month or so, so look for volunteer opportunities to come at that time. And until then, raising the total of $18K+ will be a challenge, even with the volunteer labor and the digin campaign, so anyone out there who wants to help us meet this goal, please contact our treasurer Joe Crumlish about a donation.

This trails is going to be awesome, and it is definitely going to happen. Time to get excited!

Get set for another great week of free cabin-camping and trail building at Allegany. The park just sourced us a fourth cabin, so we should have plenty of space for everyone. We will start work on the new trail to the west of the Stone Tower. That means we can actually drive the one-maile dirt road to the starting spot and get right to work. No need to ride our bikes out to the work area first.

We will be supplying the lunches and the Saturday evening dinner. And lots of good times. We will start work each day at 10 AM. The work will be mostly clearing the corridor as we hope to follow up with some mechanized benching later.

This is will be a ton of fun as usual, so see you all there. Be sure to register at the meetup, but even if you forget, come on down!

Persistance and learning from the first try is the name of the game. WNYMBA went after a Recreational Trails Program (RTP) grant two years ago to build the next new trail at ASP approved in the master plan. When the RTP grants were offered again, WNYMBA doubled down and submitted a new application. This version is better than the last one, with a smaller scope to get the trail started, a bigger cash match from WNYMBA, and more demonstration of public support. Developing this application was a huge undertaking with many forms, questions, and legal documentations required. Allegany State Park was very helpful in providing support, documentation, and other help in putting this application together. Keep those fingers crossed.

WNYMBA submitted for a Recreational Trails Program (RTP) Grant this past fall in an effort to garner funds for building one of the new Trails at Allegany State Park. While we have one of the three approved trails (the one off of Ridge Run) mostly built, the other two are more remote and could benefit from some contracted construction. The proposal was quite an effort (take a look here). The RTP program is federally available trail building funding that in New York is administered by the State Parks folks.

We unfortunately were not successful in pursuit of the grant. However, we gained great experience, and got some records organized enough to help in our recent solicitations for funds for the Muck Truck, which has been a successful effort.

WNYMBA has been working on turnnig the major successes with the Allegany State Park master plan into reality.

Not only with the big spring and fall trail work weekends to get the new ridge run singletrack built. But also on submitting grant applications to help get these trails built. Since Allegany is a little farther from Buffalo than E-ville, and more importantly, because the trails to be built are much farther from roads it will take longer to get these built. Add to that the significant amount of bench cutting required (which makes the best trails!), means that these routes are prime candidates for some machine built singletrack, and that takes money.

We submitted three grants for programs through IMBA earlier this year, the Bell Built grant, the Clif Bar Grant, and the competetive cyclist grant, but were not selected.

However, we recently submitted a very large application to one of the grand daddies of the all - the Recreational Trails Program (RTP). Perhaps you have gotten e-mails from IMBA about the importance of maintaining funding for this program. It has been successfully funded and the funds in New York are put out for competition every two years by the State Parks folks. We submitted a proposal for about $150,000 in funding to help build the proposed Stone Tower trail, an eight mile singletrack that will head out from the Stone Tower all the way over to above the Indian Casino and back.

As you can imagine, this was a significant effort. We are not sure when we hear the results, but if we win it, then the real hard work will begin, as we will be required to provide about $30,000 in volunteer labor as a match.

So keep your fingers crossed, and be ready if we are successful!{jcomments on}

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